Forbidden Films
An Analysis of the Nazi Propaganda Films
The Eternal Jew and Jew Suess and Their
Influence on the German Public

Propaganda and Propaganda Movies
during the Third Reich

T

he eminent French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul defines
propaganda1 as a series of methods applied by an organized group in order to
get others involved in its activities, whether actively or passively.2 Propaganda
finds expression not only in obvious forms, through the press and through
gatherings and conferences, but also at the broader social level, encompassing
all areas of the individual’s life, including education, art, and public behavior.
According to Ellul, propaganda involves not only the attempt of the political
leader to manipulate the people, but also the active participation of the
propagandee (the target of the propaganda), who becomes a full partner in
the process, and indeed derives tremendous satisfaction from it. Without the
consent of the propagandee, there could be no dissemination of propaganda
in the modern era. This reflects a need not only of the propagandist but also
of the ordinary individual – in regimes defined as “democratic” as well as in
those defined as “totalitarian.” The difference lies in the fact that dictatorships
have far higher expectations from propaganda – to the point where they expect
it to mold a new kind of individual.3

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The cinema occupies a unique position among the various ways of
spreading propaganda. Baruch Gitlis, a historian of the propaganda film,
maintained that it was the capacity of the cinema to influence the senses
– coined by him the “abdominal muscles” – that makes this medium so
unique.4 A movie can cause us to shed tears, feel dryness in the throat,
burst into belly-aching laughter, and even drive us to the point of losing
consciousness. After reviewing a series of research papers in the field,
Gitlis concluded that a film-maker could probably alter the opinions of a
viewer on any given issue, provided he or she did not have a firm position
on it to begin with.5 Another historian of propaganda films, David Welch,
demonstrated, through various studies, that while propaganda can intensify
and augment sensations and ideas that already exist in a population, it
cannot radically change opinions or induce new sensations and notions that
were not present among its members in the first place.6
During the period of the Third Reich (1933-1945), the Nazi party believed
propaganda to be vital, and engaged in it not only through the Ministry of
Propaganda, which was set up soon after the party seized power, but also
through a special apparatus within the party itself. This was the first time
that any state had appointed a minister specifically in charge of propaganda.
Nazi propaganda made use of every available type of media, ranging from
newspapers, magazines (including women’s and children’s periodicals),
books, conferences and rallies to theater, art, radio, and of course, films. The
production of propaganda films was the sole responsibility of the Ministry
of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels, an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler
who, prior to his appointment to the post, had been the chief propagandist of
the Nazi party. Goebbels perceived the cinema as “the most comprehensive
modern medium that exists to influence the masses.”7 Thus, alongside such
image-building propaganda films of Germany under the Nazi party regime
as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the will) (1935),
Goebbels also harnessed the cinema to spread anti-Jewish propaganda. This
was done to a large extent under the inspiration of Hitler himself, who had
already dwelt on the importance of propaganda in his notorious book Mein
Kampf.8
Almost seventy years have passed since the purported “documentary”
movie Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) (1940) was released to cinemas

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in Germany. This film, directed by Fritz Hippler, is today banned from
screening in most European countries. Yet, in browsing the Internet, it is
easy to come across not only academic discussions of this film but also the
following comment, which appears alongside the price offer for the film, on
an American white supremacist website:

Best documentary film on the Jews ever produced, with new English sound
track. Jews were filmed as they actually lived and worked in Poland in 1940.
Jewish history, religion, society, cultural tendencies and business practices
are explored. Jewish ritual-slaughter section has most horrifying scenes
ever filmed. Shows Jews as they really are.9

Even today, this notorious hate film has not been forgotten; in fact, far from
it – it is more accessible than ever before. Another antisemitic film produced
in Nazi Germany in 1940 was Jud Süss (Jew Suess) by the director Veit
Harlan. What makes this movie so unique is that while it is a fictional feature
film, it, too, purports to teach the audience about the character of “the real
Jew.” In this paper I shall attempt to uncover which official institutions of
the Third Reich were behind the production of these two films, what their
objectives were, and whether those goals were achieved. The Ministry of
Propaganda produced a number of explicitly anti-Jewish propaganda films,
but The Eternal Jew and Jew Suess are regarded as outstanding examples
of the antisemitic propaganda film – The Eternal Jew on account of its
venomous character, making it into what is acknowledged to be “the most
famous Nazi propaganda film of all time, a movie that, as far back as 1968,
was described by the researcher Erwin Leiser as a film that ‘turns honest
citizens into indulgent mass murderers’”10; and Jew Suess on account of its
extraordinary box-office success.

From the Initial Idea to the Premiere
On 10 November 1938, Hitler summoned leaders of the German media to a
meeting in order to express his anger at the relative lack of support he had
received from the public after the events of Kristallnacht. He attacked his
listeners and made the following demands for the future:

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But gradually it became necessary to [condition the German people
psychologically and slowly] make it grasp that there do exist things that one
has to solve with violent means when they cannot be solved by peaceful
means. To do so, however, it was necessary not to make propaganda for
violence as such, but to elucidate certain events of foreign policy to the
German people in such a way that the inner voice of the people by itself
slowly began to call for violence [sic].11

Propaganda Minister Goebbels took the reprimand very seriously and
decided to harness the film industry (for which he was responsible in his
ministerial capacity) for the production of anti-Jewish propaganda that
would lead to the required mobilization of the German people. He asked the
film companies to submit screenplays for movies of an antisemitic character.
What Goebbels hoped to achieve above all, according to Danish film
historian Stig Hornshøj-Møller, was the making of a so-called documentary
film about the Jews. However this could be done only after the annexation
of Poland since there were no Jews in Germany that fitted the description
of the Nazi stereotype.12

The Production of The Eternal Jew
An exhibition entitled “The Eternal Jew” was opened in Munich in 1937 with
the assistance of the Ministry of Propaganda; on display were antisemitic
pictures and paintings of Jews. The idea behind it was to “remove the mask
from the face of the Jew” by means of pictures from “every-day life” in the
East European Jewish quarters. Already at the opening of the exhibition, a
short anti-Jewish propaganda film was screened lambasting famous Jewish
film stars from the Weimar period. Goebbels apparently did not like this
film, for in his diaries he wrote that it was a “bad propaganda film about
Jews in cinema; it was made in defiance of my prohibition. I will not give it
my approval. It is too burdensome.”13 However, Dr. Eberhard Taubert, head
of the Eastern Department (Abteilung Ost) of the Ministry of Propaganda,
apparently persuaded Goebbels to give the option of antisemitic propaganda
films another chance and soon after the opening of this exhibition, the
Polish authorities were asked to allow a film to be shot about the Jews in

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their territory, but they refused.14
Two years later, after the German occupation of Poland, officials of the
Ministry of Propaganda no longer needed to obtain permission from anyone
and could get on with the implementation of their program. Taubert was
put in charge of the project, but as a senior propagandist at the ministry, he
first concentrated on anti-Bolshevik propaganda in the framework of the
General Union of German Anti-communist Organizations (Gesamtverband
deutscher antikommunistischer Vereinigungen), known as the AntiKomintern, which he had set up in 1933. This organization had been
established outside the Ministry of Propaganda and its affiliation with the
ministry was kept secret in order not to upset the Soviet Union, with which
Germany in 1934 was still trying to maintain friendly relations. Its principal
function was to spread anti-communist propaganda, but Taubert was
personally in charge of briefing the press on writing in the “anti-communist
spirit” which the authorities were anxious to disseminate. The perception
guiding the organization was that it had also to combat world Jewry, since
Bolshevism was led by Jews. Before long, Taubert began to disseminate
virulently anti-Jewish propaganda in the framework of the Institut zum
Studium der Judenfrage (Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question),
which had been placed under his authority.15 In order to promote the idea
of the movie, Taubert and Goebbels decided to send Fritz Hippler, head of
the cinema department at the Ministry of Propaganda, to Lodz to film Jews
living there. Hippler, who was only 30 at the time, was the rising star at the
Propaganda Ministry’s newsreel department, and had already directed two
short propaganda films of Germany’s victories.16 Prior to the start of his
career at the ministry, Hippler – then still a student – had been one of the
organizers of the burning of Jewish books in Berlin in May 1933.17
On 5 October 1939, Goebbels and Tauber gave the following description
of Hippler’s assignment: to produce a Ghettofilm “with typical Jewish
characters.” Hippler was further instructed to stage and film a service in
the synagogue and the religious ritual of kosher slaughter.18 On 11 October,
Hippler and cameraman Erich Stoll arrived in Lodz and began to shoot
the film. There is virtually no testimony from the time of the filming
process itself, but it is evident that Hippler and Stoll shot the synagogue
scenes, as well as the kosher ritual slaughter one, in Lodz; in the latter,

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a “Jewish butcher” is shown tormenting cattle with a disturbing brutality.
Unfortunately no source material has come to light revealing details of how
this scene was staged or who the participants were. The Israeli scholar Daniel
Uziel proved in his research that the propaganda wing of the Wehrmacht
(Wehrmachtspropagandaabteiliung)19 played an active role in the filming in
Lodz.20 Already on 2 October, even before Hippler and Stoll left for Lodz,
the propaganda divisions were ordered to obtain “film footage showing all
sorts of Jewish types. We need more than before, from Warsaw and from all
the occupied territories. What we want are portraits and images of Jews at
work.”21 On 7 October, the commander of the Eighth Army was instructed
to give as much assistance as possible to Hippler and Stoll:

The Ministry of Propaganda assigns Dr. Eberhard Taubert and Mr. Fritz
Hippler [Cinema Inspector of the Reich] to Warsaw on a special mission;
the cameramen Zunf, Endreat, Soll and Tallman will go to Lodz; and [the
cameramen] Winterfeld, Kunger, Hartmann and Eschenbach – to Krakow.
Please give them every possible assistance in carrying out their task and
second them to the PK [the regional propaganda division].22

Uziel demonstrates that there is a real contradiction between Hippler’s later
contention that he filmed only in Lodz and the correspondence preserved
by the Wehrmacht. From these documents, it appears that the Propaganda
Division in Lodz helped Hippler and Stoll in the filming of the infamous
slaughter scene. The assistance appears to have been mainly logistic and
technical. References to the filming process may be found in written material
of a small number of Jews who witnessed the making of The Eternal Jew.
One of these was Bernard Goldstein, a resident of Warsaw. In his memoirs,
he describes how the film crew deliberately refrained from filming “bodies
lying in the street, walking human skeletons and half-naked children.”
Gitlis (quoting from an unidentified source) points out that individuals
of particularly repulsive appearance were deliberately chosen for the
movie, and film techniques and special lenses were used to exaggerate the
characters’ appearance.
Recalling another film project that took place in the summer of 1942,
Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944) describes how a scene was staged that
shows men and women bathing together in a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath;

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a similar scene appears in The Eternal Jew), how the shop-windows of
Jewish stores were filled with luxury goods for the shoot and how one of
the children was coerced into stealing a loaf of bread.23
On 16 October 1939, Hippler and Stoll returned to Germany and a few
days later showed Goebbels the ritual slaughter scene they had staged.
Goebbels’ reaction was one of horror but he was not to be deterred:
“Scenes so horrific and brutal in their explicitness that one’s blood runs
cold. One shudders at such barbarism. This Jewry must be annihilated.”24
On 29 October, Goebbels, in the course of a dinner, showed Hitler and
other leading party personalities some of the scenes that had been shot,
including the slaughter scene. In his diary he wrote that the gathering was in
shock.25 Afterward, the historian Ralf Georg Reuth recorded that Goebbels
suggested inserting the ritual slaughter scene into the movie Jew Suess,
too, but its director Harlan firmly opposed the idea, arguing that the horrific
cruelty in it “would make the audience’s stomach turn over.” Goebbels
agreed that the scene be included only in The Eternal Jew.26
One day after the screening before Hitler, Goebbels himself traveled with
Taubert and a film crew to the Lodz ghetto. Møller and another researcher,
David Culbert, assume that it was on this occasion that additional segments
were shot, including the filming of a Talmud Torah, wheeling-and-dealing
in a synagogue and “before” and “after” shots of Orthodox Jews “disguised”
as west Europeans.27 Upon his return Goebbels wrote in his diary:
It was unbelievable. They [the Jews] are not people; they are animals. So it
is no longer a humanitarian task but a task for a surgeon. This has to be cut
off right here and in the most radical fashion, or else Europe will one day
collapse from the Jewish Disease.28

From this point on, work on the film intensified. The cameraman Stoll
filmed the “rat-scene” in Berlin – which compares the dispersion of Jews
throughout the world with that of rats, and purports to show how both of
them spread diseases. Music “with Jewish characteristics” was added to
the film and animation segments were constructed – all under the close
supervision of Goebbels, who virtually assumed the role of super-producer,
according to Møller. Hitler, too, was kept informed of progress on the film,
and asked for certain changes, which led to a delay in its premiere.29 The

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first version of the film did not include the scene comparing the external
appearance of the Jew to the “Aryan,” or Hitler’s speech at the Reichstag in
which he threatened to destroy world Jewry if war broke out. It is not clear
why these segments were included only at a later stage: perhaps because of
Hitler’s comments.
From the memoirs of Goebbels and others, we learn that in December
1939 Hitler fumed at Goebbels, claiming that the propaganda films were
being made in amateur fashion. Goebbels took keen note of these remarks
and the delays in the editing of The Eternal Jew may have been due to
Hitler’s criticism.30 At the beginning of March 1940, the film was shown to
a “focus group” of 120 people, including Party personalities and academics.
Following their comments, further changes were made, and the film was
officially completed in September 1940 after five different versions had
been produced. Its general release appears to have been postponed until the
completion of Jew Suess. On 8 September, the official screening took place
before cabinet ministers, army representatives, the foreign press, academics,
and representatives of the Hitler Youth and women’s organizations.
According to testimonies quoted by Møller, the reactions to the screening
were of horror and some of those present said the movie was too awful to
watch and should be allowed for screening only in closed meetings of the
Party. These comments prompted Goebbels to give orders that two versions
be produced: one, the full version including the slaughter scene, and the
second a “watered-down” version more suitable for women and children.
On 4 November, the censor gave the go-ahead for public screening of the
film, noting that it was “politically and artistically valuable.”
The premiere took place on 28 November. At 4 p.m. the shortened
version was screened, and at 6.30 p.m. – the full version.31 Everyone who
entered the Ufa Palest-am-Zoo cinema in Berlin was given a program with
a description of the repulsive scenes about to be screened and a concise
outline of what they were about to experience: the movie, it stated, was
the story of the Jew who lives in a building not fit to be called a house, a
hovel that is always filthy. The Jewish race, it went on, does not work for a
living but makes its money out of wheeling-and-dealing at all times, even
in the synagogue during prayer services. Moreover, the Jew does know
how to assimilate into the population in whose midst he lives, for which

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purpose he will shave off his beard and don European apparel. That is how
the Jew manages to gain control of high-ranking and important positions.
This applies in particular, the writers warn, to Germany itself, where the
Jews are to blame for Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Even now
the Jews were continuing to exploit the German state. The way the Jews
have dispersed around the world – thus the program tells us – is identical
to the way rats have spread everywhere. The long program notes conclude
with a description of a kosher slaughter ritual which it labeled “inhuman.”
“In shining contrast, the film closes with pictures of German people and
German order which fill the viewer with a feeling of deep gratification
for belonging to a race whose Führer is fundamentally solving the Jewish
problem.”32
An article published upon the general release of the film in the monthly
bulletin of Nazi Party propagandists (Unser Wille und Weg) states that this
film should be screened wherever any doubt is cast on antisemitism. “Rarely
will people feel more horror than when watching the desperate and horrible
death struggle of the slaughtered animals. One has a deep sense of salvation
after seeing this film. This film will be a valuable tool in that struggle.”
The reaction anticipated at the end of the movie, it asserts, is “Help, and a
powerful desire for victory in the fight against Jewry.” The film, it said, was
bound to be a powerful tool in this struggle.33

The Production of Jew Suess
Jew Suess was not the first antisemitic feature film to be produced in the
Third Reich but it was by far the most popular.34 It was preceded by several
movies that displayed a “soft” antisemitism which should be viewed as
part of the European antisemitic tradition and not as a deliberately directed
endeavor, as well as by several “hard” antisemitic films which were of lesser
importance than Jew Suess. Among the latter, one may note Die Rothschilds
(The Rothschilds, 1940) – which was in essence an anti-British movie with
certain antisemitic elements. It was made in reaction to a pro-Jewish film
produced in the United States, The House of Rothschild (1934). The film
Jew Suess was also made in response to a pro-Jewish film of the same name

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produced in England in 1935.
The film Jew Suess is purportedly based upon the true story of Josef Suess
Oppenheimer, financial adviser to Duke Karl Alexander of Württemburg
who was sentenced to hanging by a court in 1738. The historical facts about
the character of Suess are not at all clear. Gitlis came to the conclusion
that Oppenheimer invented some new taxes in order to finance the duke’s
new army, a force that was intended to impose Roman Catholicism upon
Protestant Württemburg. After the duke’s sudden death from a heart attack,
Suess was arrested on the orders of a special committee which, however,
could find no evidence that he had cheated the ducal mint. At that stage, an
attempt was made to find some immoral elements in his private life, but
here, too, the committee seems to have met with little success. Nevertheless,
Suess was indicted and interrogated with great cruelty for an entire year. In
the end he was hanged inside a cage on 4 February 1738. Gitlis noted that
the duke’s ministers, who had, in fact, embezzled public funds, got away
scot free. Several historical novels were written about Suess after his death,
most of them painting an uncomplimentary or even antisemitic portrait of
the Jew. However in none of these was it claimed that Suess was put to
death on charges of having raped or had sexual relations with a Christian
woman, as depicted in the movie, but rather on various charges of abuse of
his high office. There were also several other articles, in which Suess was
presented in a positive light.35
Unlike The Eternal Jew, which was produced directly by the Ministry
of Propaganda, Jew Suess was made by a private company called Terra,
albeit under the close supervision of Goebbels himself. The screenplay was
written by Ludwig Metzger who had already, back in 1921, tried to get
film companies interested in producing a movie about Suess. Now, with the
demand for antisemitic screenplays, he saw his chance.36 Eberhard Moeller
participated in the screen adaptation of Metzger’s story. In the film, Suess
is executed for the rape of a Christian woman and for abuse of office –
accusations that did not appear in any of the historical essays on Suess
Oppenheimer.37 Moeller gave the following explanation for their version
of the historic story: “We, too, tried to be objective, but our objectivity
is different from that of the past, when efforts were made to understand
everything and forgive.” 38

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Within a short time Veit Harlan assumed the role of director, replacing the
previous one who had quit. The historian Rolf Giesen wrote that, contrary
to the version generally accepted by researchers of the period – namely that
Harlan was coerced into producing the movie (a claim that he himself tried
to advocate after the war) – it appears that Harlan himself volunteered for
the job.39 Giesen suggested that Harlan’s detestation of the Jews stemmed
from an event in his own life, when a group of Jews ousted his father from
the post of president of the Association of Dramatists.40 Reading Harlan’s
diaries, one can get a glimpse into the production process of the movie
which made the director a close friend and ally of Goebbels. Another source
of historical information is the record of testimonies at the postwar trial
of Harlan on charges of “crimes against humanity.” Ultimately, he was
acquitted because the prosecution failed to prove that he sought deliberately
to promote antisemitism.
The biggest problem that faced Harlan in the early stages of production
of the movie in 1940 was casting the leading Jewish characters. In a
newspaper article, Goebbels, who closely followed the production process,
outlined the acting qualities required: “For Jud Süss we are still looking
for an actor. He must combine the worldly elegance of the assimilated Jew
with the underhand demoniac power and coldness of a greedy, sensual
Hebrew.”41 At first no German actor would agree to take on the part of Suess
Oppenheimer. Even the actor who eventually took the part – Ferdinand
Marianes – did so with undisguised reluctance and under pressure from
Goebbels himself, who summoned him to a private meeting and told him
(according to Harlan) that the Nazi party had raised German actors to
such a high position that they were earning more than scientists, and that
“Now, when they are asked to make a contribution, they refuse, with one
eye on ‘the Jewish filth’ in Hollywood.”42 Marianes was persuaded, and
Goebbels, anxious to assuage the actor’s concern that his status could be
undermined if he appeared in the role of the Jew, issued a statement that
“Aryan blood” flowed in his veins (Marianes had in the past been married
to a Jewess).43 Later, Marianes dropped his adamant refusal, explaining that
he now identified completely with the aims of the film; yet after the war he
maintained he had been forced to participate in it. He claimed he had tried
deliberately to sabotage his screen test in order to be rejected for the role,

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but in the end was coerced into accepting it after it was implied that his halfJewish step-daughter would be harmed.44
The actor Werner Krauss who played the part of Rabbi Loeb in the film,
immediately accepted this offer of work and indeed was paid fifty thousand
Marks.45 However, not all the actors approached by Harlan to act in the
movie acceded to the request: Giesen demonstrated that at least one actor,
Albrecht Schoenhals, firmly refused to accept any role in the film due to his
opposition to the Nazis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a stand for which he was blacklisted.46
When production began in January 1940, Harlan toured ghettoes in
Poland in order to observe the lives of the Jews and to seek out Jewish extras
for his film. Film historian Susan Tegel researched the use of Jewish extras
in the film and gives a detailed description of Harlanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey in Poland.47
In Lublin, Harlan met with the rabbi of the local community and asked
him to help find a hundred Jews for scenes in the movie. The rabbi, who
believed that Harlanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions were positive and that the participation
of members of his congregation would help to refute and obliterate antiJewish prejudices, agreed to help him.48 In return, Harlan promised the
rabbi he would see to the return of some ancient books and scrolls that had
been seized from the synagogue. In his diary he wrote that the Jews were so
grateful that they presented him with a Torah scroll. By the end of his visit,
120 Jews had been mobilized, and travel and accommodation arrangements
made for them in Berlin, all under medical supervision.
The German press had been given strict instructions not to report the
expected arrival of the Jews in the city for work on the movie. However,
due to an outbreak of typhus in the ghetto, Harlan was banned by the
health supervision authorities from bringing the Jews to Berlin and had to
abandon his project. He was able to shoot only one short segment inside the
Jewish area in Poland.49 Eventually Harlan sought out Jews to participate
in the movie in Prague, where they were filmed in the Barrandov studios.
According to some witnesses, Harlan asked for the assistance of S.S. officers
in finding candidates and forcing Jews to participate, though it is not clear
to what extent this testimony is reliable.50
Harlan himself maintained that it was the chief rabbi of Prague who had
cooperated with him; but an examination conducted at the time of his trial
produced no rabbi answering to the name he gave. Tegel quotes a number

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of testimonies alleging that the Jews who participated in the movie were
mobilized at the registration bureau in Prague and received payment. She
contends that the claims of Harlan’s aides that these Jews were anxious to
participate in the movie should be seen in the context of a severe shortage
of food, combined with the anti-Jewish measures taken by the authorities.
She explains that in fact they had no choice in the matter.51 The testimonies
given by Jews in Harlan’s trial paint a highly complex picture: while one
witness maintained that Harlan had resorted to implicit threats of violence
if his orders were not obeyed, the wife of one of the Jewish singers in the
film said that Harlan displayed a humane attitude.52
In September 1940, the film was released for public screening in Germany.
Goebbels noted in his diary: “This is a great success. The work of a genius
[i.e., Harlan]. Precisely the antisemitic movie that we wanted.” 53 Goebbels
was so delighted that he gave orders for it to be sent immediately to Venice
for presentation at the German-Italian film festival.54 The program gives a
detailed description of the story of the film: how the Jew Suess lends the
duke some money and in exchange, attains financial control over the entire
city; how Suess abducts the beautiful Dorothea Strum and brutally rapes her,
while his servants torture her husband in the cellars; how Dorothea manages
to escape and then commits suicide; how the duke dies, and finally – how
Suess is brought to trial and sentenced to death. In conclusion the program
tells how the Jews leave the city while the judge who condemned Suess
warns: “May the citizens of other countries never forget this lesson.”55 In an
interview with a reporter for the periodical Der Film when Jew Suess was
released, Harlan noted the connection between the story and the Nuremberg
Laws, noting that two centuries earlier a Jew was condemned to death for
having sexual relations with a Christian woman:

Here I am depicting authentic Jewry as it was then and as it now continues
unchecked in Poland. In contrast to this original Jewry we are presented
with Süss, the elegant financial adviser to the Court, the clever politician in
short, the Jew in disguise.56

When the movie was released for general viewing in Berlin, journalists
were given instructions as to how to write about it. They were asked to
point out that Jews like Suess exploited their position and power not for the

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good of the community but for the benefit of their own race:

It is the duty off all newspapers to point out this typically Jewish trait and
to take the opportunity of the film’s première to impress on our people
the message that every Jew has only his well-being and that of his racial
brothers in mind, even when he pretends generous motive.57

Nevertheless, Gitlis points out that the directives issued by the Ministry of
Propaganda to the press underlined that the movie should be treated as a
feature movie, not a propaganda film.58 Goebbels believed that the message
would be well enough understood without too much explicit guidance.59

Cinematic Expression
While the primary concern here is with a historical examination of these
propaganda films, a brief discussion of the ideas and range of associations that
the film-makers sought to trigger in the minds of viewers is in order. As far as
possible, an attempt will be made to examine this angle through the memories
of the film-makers themselves, and where this is not possible, interpretations
of the film by experts in propaganda and cinema will be quoted.

Analysis of The Eternal Jew
Gitlis believes the influence of The Eternal Jew was substantially reduced
by what he calls a “lack of rational consistency,” despite the sensual
stimulations engendered by some of the scenes in the movie which have
a particularly powerful impact. Hippler himself comments on the effect he
hoped to make on the viewer:

If one allows the images to sink into the consciousness, one must admit
that even the most hateful caricatures and actions are far from capturing
the reality. Everyone who has seen these images has said the same thing: a
symphony of disgust and terror.60

According to Gitlis, the narrator in the movie creates a barrier between the
viewers (and himself) and the subject of the film – the Jews. The continual

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use of the first person (“To us Germans”) while classifying the Jews as
“the Other” implies that a danger lurks beyond the borders of the German
community.61 It is these emotions that Hippler tried to reach through his
portrayal of figures that arouse the kind of formative and subconscious
associations frequently used in propaganda films in order to lead the viewer
to conclusions that are illogical, and in our case, to stimulate feelings of
hatred against the Jews. Gitlis explained that this was a primitive system
used to provoke conditioned reflexes instead of arguments. Once he has set
in motion a process of distancing from the Jew, the propagandist is free to
resort to whatever manipulation suits him best.62
Following is a description of some of the main scenes and issues in
which one can detect a specific subtext beyond the openly hostile remarks
and grotesque presentations.
A. Insects on the wall in Jewish homes: in the opening scene, the camera
focuses on some “typical” Jewish characters, looking at the ways they make
their livelihood. Particularly memorable in this scene is a close-up of insects
(such as cockroaches, fleas, and ants) crawling on the wall of one of the
houses. Gitlis, in his commentary, writes that the message from this scene is
that the Jewish family lives in a dishonorable fashion, in filthy and neglected
surroundings, lacking the most basic hygiene. The narrator explains that the
family shown is not a poor one, and that the Jews prefer to live in filth. This
kind of life, he says, is the very opposite of that of the clean, orderly German
family. Inevitably the viewer is filled with a sense of disgust.63
B. Juxtaposition of the working man with the Jew: this is attained by
showing the Jew as working only in petty trading, in ugly wheeling-anddealing, and in selling contaminated goods. “They have neither ideals nor
morals; their religion teaches them to exploit and deceive anyone who
is not a Jew,” the narrator asserts. In contra-distinction, the character of
the hard-working German is shown. Gitlis explains that the principle of
comparison is achieved through close-ups of repulsive-looking characters
(Jews) alternating with close-ups of muscular working hands, hammerblows, and a strong torso.64 The German workers are shot from a low angle,
to enhance their stature on the screen. The Jews, on the other hand, are shot
from up high, making them appear smaller than they really are, like insects
and parasites scuttling about in a cage. According to Gitlis, every person

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appearing in the movie clearly belongs to a certain stereotype, to either the
German camp or the enemy one (the Jews) – and this is evident at every
stage from their outward appearance, which is meant as a reflection of their
moral values. This is an objective that the Nazi propagandist successfully
attained.65
C. Juxtaposition of the music: when the “Aryan” types are shown in the
film, the feeble and discordant background music is replaced by harmonious
tones that reach particularly high octaves.
D. The crawling snake: the Jew takes control of the world – the historic
story line of the Wandering Jew is shown in animation. According to
Taubert, who wrote the screenplay, the Wandering Jew began his travels
from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and from Egypt to Palestine, from where he
set out to conquer all of Europe. This is represented by a crawling snake
− an image reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Gradually,
what emerges on the screen is a kind of spider web that covers not only
Europe but the entire western hemisphere.66 The visual illustration of these
wanderings recalls the outbreak of an epidemic or the spread of cancer
through the human body.
E. The Jew as a rat: this is perhaps the most famous scene of the entire
film. It begins by showing the Asian brown rat, with the narrator informing
the audience that it first strayed out of Asia on board ships that plied the
seas, eventually reaching every corner of the earth. At first the trail of the
wandering rat is shown on the map – and again it is a winding one, like that
of the snake. In the second part of this scene, the picture changes and we are
given a close-up of the rat itself, and then out of the sewers emerge more
and more revolting rats that run about madly until they fill the entire screen,
threatening to break out of it and leap out onto the hapless viewer. Only at
this stage does the narrator explain to those in the audience who did not
figure it out for themselves that the rat is actually the Jew himself.67
Gitlis maintains that the comparison of the Jews to rats not only creates
the effect of repulsion but makes the Jew appear inhuman. In that sense
the traits attributed to the Jew of being “evil,” “ugly,” or “filthy” refer not
only to his external appearance but to his inner being, too.68 He maintains
that the effect attained in this scene is a powerful need to stop the Jew from
spreading any further: “The general rhythmic synchronization makes this

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scene appear (cinematic content) as though it would go on and on for ever
– unless it is stopped.”69
F. The “before and after” scene: a group of Jews is shown in their
“traditional” garb, with long beards, side-locks, and traditional black robes.
But several seconds later, they appear as clean-shaven and dressed in natty
European clothing. The cinematic dissolve70 creates a kind of morphing effect
in which every face with “original” Jewish characteristics (bearded, etc.) is
transformed into a “European” one of an assimilated Jew. Here, according
to Gitlis, the film attempts to show that the Jew is trying to camouflage
himself and disguise his race.71 The evil, threatening appearance of the Jew
in the “before” version is also attained through photographic contrasts. The
black-clad Jews are shown against a white background and filmed using a
wide-angle lens, so that they look almost like black stains.72
G. Jewish art: in this long segment a series of “authentic” Jewish works
of art is shown, juxtaposed with what are presented as “Aryan” works from
the classic and Renaissance eras. The “Aryan” works show harmonious,
idyllic figures while the figures in the Jewish ones are distorted. The narrator
says that “the Jew is instinctively interested in anything that is abnormal
and perverted…and seeks ways to undermine the healthy judgment of the
race.”73 Gitlis concludes that this is an attempt to persuade the viewer that
the Jew is incapable of grasping the Aryan concept of beauty.74
H. Sexual ecstasy in the synagogue: in order to juxtapose the morality
of Christianity against the immorality of Judaism, the film seeks to
show scenes from Jewish religious life in which wheeling-and-dealing
characteristically takes place not only in the street and the marketplace but
also in the synagogue itself. The scene of rhythmic prayer is interrupted
every few seconds by close-ups of hands exchanging money and goods
underneath the synagogue pews, against the background of the chant of
the chazan (cantor). Gitlis concluded that the portrayal of the men swaying
backwards and forwards in exaggerated fashion in this scene suggests an
act of sexual ecstasy of a perverted nature.75
I. Jewish slaughter: this is a particularly gruesome scene to watch. On
the screen a cow is bleeding profusely and the Jewish butcher is leaning
over it beaming with joy, wiping the blood off his knife with his hand. He
and his colleagues laugh at the suffering of the cow whose head has been

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partially severed, writhing in its own blood. In contrast, there are idyllic
scenes of cows and sheep at pasture, looking gentle and contented. The
narrator condemns kosher Jewish slaughter, which he claims is carried
out without anesthesia, and refers to attempts made in several “advanced”
European countries to ban this practice – including the Nuremberg laws.
Giesen described it as follows:
Germans don’t like rats but they like pastoral lambs, and these peaceloving animals are falling victim to the knives of Jewish butchers without
anesthesia. It was announced that the slaughter sequence contained the
cruelest scenes ever depicted.76

The film researcher Ilan Avisar, concludes that the purpose of the sequence
was to legitimize – by way of analogy – the solution to the Jewish problem:
by their physical elimination.77
J. Hitler’s speech at the Reichstag: this sequence is defined by Gitlis as
“the climax of the film.” On screen we see sections of Hitler’s appearance
before the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, when he threatened the destruction
of international Jewry if the Jews brought about war in Europe. The film
concludes with images of a military parade, with S.S. officers and blonde
girls decked out with Nazi symbols, against the background of a narration
calling for “the elimination of the ugliness and inhumanity of world Jewry
that has so revolted and disgusted us for the last hour.”78 Film critics of the
time explained that this concluding scene was “like once again seeing the
light after darkness. Once again we are surrounded by Germans and German
life. We return from a long journey and are cut off at last from the Jews.”79
After the war, the Allied Commission ruled that The Eternal Jew was
one of the most blatant examples of outright antisemitic Nazi propaganda
and the most revolting yet astute film ever made for mass consumption.80
Not withstanding good editing of some of the scenes and top-quality camera
work, Gitlis concluded that the movie was an artistic failure – as both film
and propaganda. The main reason, in his view, was that it went too far in
both the artistic and the aesthetic sense, and did not rouse tension in the
audience. Møller and Culbert found that “The Eternal Jew did not attain its
declared objectives,” the reasons being lack of active audience participation
in the film due to the presence of an omniscient narrator, too much horror,

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and implausible documentation.81 Was the movie then also a box-office
failure? This question will be examined below.

Analysis of Jew Suess
Most scholars tend to agree that this movie attained its propaganda
objectives. According to Gitlis, the film sought to establish a geographic,
moral and racial distance between the Jew – whose place was in the ghetto
– and the “Aryan,” whose place was in the city of Stuttgart. So long as the
Jew remained within the pale of settlement, this balance was preserved,
but once he attained power and influence by means of his wealth and
subsequently entered the “Aryan” space, the balance was upset. The danger
was not only financial but physical as well: the risk of contaminating the
blood of the “Aryan” woman and thereby destroying the entire race. The
conclusion to be drawn was self-evident: the Jew must be confined in his
own space in order to restore the moral harmony that had been wrecked.82
Gitlis went on to say that the effect of the film was to cause viewers such
distress as to lead to an upsurge of emotions and passions, which the filmmakers intensified by resorting to erotic elements.
Some of the issues raised in the movie highlight these points:
A. The music: the movie opens with a well-known 15th-century German
song which is suddenly interrupted by discordant “Jewish” music, and the
chant of a chazan in the synagogue. However, before long, the German
music crescendos and we see Dorothea and her lover in Stuttgart, far from
any troubles. Already at that stage Gitlis realized that the film-makers were
trying to demonstrate an attempt by the Jew to step beyond his own space.83
Harlan claimed that, to begin with, the Jewish extras were taken on in the
film only because of their familiarity with the extraordinary Jewish music
and customs, but Tegel shows that the chants in the film are not at all Jewish
in character: in fact, the song used is a Bedouin folksong, to whose melody
Zionist activists wrote Hebrew words, calling it “The Camel Song,” and it
was chosen deliberately because it sounds non-European. Tegel maintains
that most European Jews had never actually heard the song.84
B. The world of the ghetto and the synagogue: the shot of the ducal

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palace is dissolved, and replaced by a Hebrew signpost at the entrance
to the ghetto in Frankfurt.85 The ghetto, according to Gitlis, is meant to
make the viewer sense that he is seeing something diametrically opposed
to the “Aryan” world of Stuttgart. Racial traits attributed to the ghetto Jews
are evident in every shot: black hair, thick beard, a stooping, shaky walk,
unhygienic appearance, a peculiar language which is a mixture of German
and Yiddish, and a grating cough. Suess himself, and Levi his assistant, are
typical Jewish stereotypes, as indeed are the other ghetto residents. At a
window in the ghetto we see a man blind in one eye with his daughter, her
hair unkempt and her breasts half exposed, moving her lips in a suggestive
manner. She and her father are arguing or negotiating with the butcher
down the road who is concealing his blood-stained knife in his apron. The
conversation is not clearly audible but the viewer can figure what the three
are talking about. Inside Suess’s house, envoys of the duke are trying to
persuade him to sell precious necklaces to their master. But Suess insists
on a very high price and is ready to reduce it only on condition that he be
allowed into Stuttgart to deliver the necklaces personally. Despite the ban
on Jews entering the city, the envoys eventually agree to provide him with
the necessary pass. Suess shaves off his beard, combs his hair in the latest
court fashion, removes his black cloak and puts on the smart costume of the
aristocracy. This segment illustrates the concept of the “Jew in disguise.”86
Tegel discovered that for the synagogue scenes, the director used Jews
brought specially for the film and not professional actors – all in order to
present “authentic” Jewish characters.87 In the second synagogue scene,
when Suess arrives to persuade the rabbi to raise funds to rescue the duke,
the Jews are filmed in the course of the prayer service. Harlan claimed
later that the Jews had been given a free hand to choose the mise-en-scène
themselves, although the screenplay states clearly that the ritual ceremony
to be shown should be the Purim festival. Tegel maintained that this was
neither a regular weekly synagogue service nor a Purim festival but probably
a prayer from the Simchat Torah festival. She concluded that this prayer was
chosen because it contains several lines assumed to allude to vengeance:
“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” In her view, Harlan was trying
to demonstrate that Judaism encourages vengeance against the gentiles.
Another reason for choosing Simchat Torah was the special nature of the

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ceremony, and particularly the dance with the Torah Scroll. The purpose, as
defined in the screenplay, was to create a “demonic effect.”88
The addition of ecstatic movements alien to the music is also intended
to create a disturbing effect. However, Tegel asserts that several other
elements prove that the entire prayer segment was a fabrication, carefully
orchestrated by Harlan and his assistants. Based on research conducted by
theologians and interviews with survivors, she discovered that the Jews
filmed in the synagogue use the term “Adoshem” for God and not the
customary “Adonai,” as that would have been sacrilege: in other words
they were aware that the purpose of the entire scene was to show Judaism
as ludicrous and demonic. Tegel also found that the prayer was not like any
Jewish prayer ritual familiar to the Jews of Germany over the last several
centuries, nor was it known to the Jews of Prague, where the scenes were
actually shot. Harlan attributed the distortions in the synagogue scene to
intervention by Goebbels, who insisted that the Jews be shown in such a
way as to provoke antisemitism, as well as to the wishes of the Jewish
participants themselves, but Tegel gave little credence to these claims. She
concluded that the objective had been to present the stereotypical Jew.89 The
testimony of one of the Jewish extras who survived the war throws some
light on Harlan’s role and intentions in regard to this scene:

Harlan placed special value on the temple scene: those praying should do
so with rocking movements, customary only in the East. Harlan initially
acquiesced to objections that these movements could no longer be found
in Western Europe, and also have no relationship to praying. Nevertheless
during filming he surprised the hitherto committed Jewish singers by
unexpectedly bringing in a crowd of 200 non-Jewish extras for the temple
scene, and by spurring them on achieved... what the fifty Jewish singers had
been unwilling to grant.90

C. Destruction of the house of Bogner the blacksmith: Bogner was a lowerclass resident of Stuttgart. When Suess was appointed financial adviser to
the duke, he insisted that Bogner pay a high price for half of his house
which, Suess alleged, was built on part of a road that was the property of
the duke, and when Bogner was unable to pay, Suess ordered the demolition
of half of his house. The scene of the wreckage is particularly distressing.
Gitlis concludes that this scene was intended to remind the viewer of the

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image of the Jew as one who is not prepared to waive his “pound of flesh,”
and to prove once again that the only thing that interests the Jew is to exploit
the gentile and take control of his property. When Bogner tries to kill Suess,
the police only just manage to save him.91
D. The Jews enter Stuttgart: after Suess has persuaded the duke to
lift the ban on Jews entering Stuttgart, they swarm into the town in great
numbers. Tegel writes that, in this scene, Harlan used Jews who were
brought specially to the set and not actors. Between seventy and one
hundred people, including women, are filmed in this segment in a long shot
as they swarm into Stuttgart. The threatening effect of this Jewish invasion
is plainly evident to every viewer.92
E. Duke Karl arrives for consultations at the ghetto: we are taken once
more to the synagogue. This time Suess brings the duke along so that he can
get some astrological counseling from Rabbi Loeb. According to Gitlis, the
dramatic effect of this scene is attained through a long shot of a group that
is racially heterogeneous: the rabbi in his traditional garb and his long thick
beard spits everywhere. Next to him is the duke whose outward appearance
– particularly his repulsive obesity, and despite his elegant aristocratic
apparel – gives him away at first glance as an “Aryan who has strayed,”
due both to his sexual rapacity and the betrayal of his people. Next to the
duke stands the black servant who represents an entirely different racial
level – low in itself but not as low as that of the Jew. And in the center of
the group stands Suess himself – “the Jew in disguise.”93
F. The rape scene: from the onset of the film one can trace a gradual
build-up of tension culminating in the rape scene, where Dorothea is
ravaged by Suess. In her naïveté, Dorothea, who is from a noble family,
takes him in her carriage into the “Aryan” zone –Stuttgart. Gitlis concludes
that this act in itself – though performed in all innocence – will, according
to Nazi logic, lead to Dorothea’s death later on, for she will be compelled
to pay for her mistake. After establishing himself, Suess organizes a ball
to which he invites the daughters of all the princes of Württemburg so that
the duke may pick himself new girls. For Suess, this is an opportunity once
again to meet Dorothea, who has meanwhile become engaged to a man by
the name of Faber. Suess forces her to dance with him and their physical
proximity is highlighted with a close-up of his face nestling against her

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breasts. According to Gitlis, the purpose of this scene is to emphasize the
undisguised lust of the Jew.94 Later, when the townspeople, among them
Dorothea’s husband Faber (her father arranged for the marriage to take place
immediately after the ball), try to rebel against the duke for his permitting
the Jews to enter the town, Suess has Faber taken prisoner and brought to
a torture cell. Dorothea, desperate to get her husband released, comes to
Suess’s room with a petition calling for his release. Here we come to the
climax of the film: through the window Dorothea hears the screams of her
husband under torture and Suess makes her an offer: he will have the torture
stopped if she surrenders herself to him. She gives in and he takes her. In
this scene, Gitlis points out, the rape scene is inter-cut with sounds from
the torture chamber – Faber’s screams of agony – and then back to Suess’
room, where Dorothea is being raped, producing a powerful psychological
effect: “The appeal to the sexual feelings of the audience is heightened even
further by the appeal to their sadistic feelings towards the Jews.”95
The sexual act itself is not shown on camera but the visual and vocal
suggestions of the act have a very powerful erotic effect. Gitlis explained
that at the time the movie was produced the rape motif was frequently
used to stir up anger among puritanically-inclined audiences such as the
Germans. Thus we find that Suess not only robbed the townspeople of their
money and won control over the city, but also contaminated their race.
Dorothea, according to Gitlis, was the ideal Nazi woman: naïve, passive,
and forbearing. Her cruel fate – her suicide – was the result of the rape
and the fact that she missed her proper vocation in life: motherhood and
preservation of the “Aryan race.” She was punished for admitting Suess
into the gates of the city.96 Gitlis concludes by suggesting that “Jew Suess is
not only the tale of the rape of a German woman by a Jew, but of the rape
of all of Germany by the Jews.”97
G. The execution of Suess: for the makers of this film, Suess’s execution
by hanging represents the victory of good over evil. After the rape, Suess
begins to lose his power and gradually returns to his own area. Dorothea
commits suicide, and after the duke’s death from a heart attack, Suess
is tried and put to death. Gitlis wonders whether, in terms of traditional
propaganda, the hanging scene was not likely to rouse feelings of sympathy
for Suess, but concludes that at that point the audience, which had opted for

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the Jew as the ultimate evil, could see the execution as a symbolic act of
vengeance.98 Welch, in analyzing this segment, concludes that the audience
could not help making comparisons between the events of 1738 and those
of 1940, and indeed the newspapers of the time helped the viewer make that
connection.99 Avisar goes even further, concluding that this scene goes far
beyond the film’s actual story line and becomes “an exemplary portrayal
of genocide,” the sensual effect of which creates a sadistic enjoyment. Its
message is unambiguous: namely the need to kill Jews.100
Summing up his thoughts on the message that the film seeks to convey,
Gitlis concludes that the main implement for transmitting it is not Suess but
the duke. Through the fate of the duke, the audience is led to understand
that the Aryan is duty-bound to preserve the purity of the race and if he fails
to do so, he will become enslaved to the Jew. Suess, according to Gitlis, is
only a pimp serving the sexual lust of the duke.101

Influence of the Films – according to Intelligence
Reports and Other Original Documentation
Reports of the S.D. (Sicherheitsdienst – Security Service) and in particular
those on public opinion (Stimmungsberichte), together with a series of
statistics gathered by the Third Reich, provide us with a source of relatively
accurate information on the way these movies were received by the German
public. In addition to documents quoted in the research literature, some of the
original reports from the collection of Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel
published in 2004 will also be examined. Though admittedly there is some
evidence of doctoring of the S.D. reports in order to satisfy the higher political
echelons, film historians who have studied extracts from the originals, before
they became part of the general report submitted to Nazi politicians, found
that they reflect the public mood to a reasonably accurate degree.102
After collecting a number of sources, Møller concluded that The Eternal
Jew was a box office failure – a “flop” to use his own term – which addressed
primarily those who already held antisemitic views. He found that not more
than one million people saw this film throughout the years that it was shown,
and that most cinemas refused to screen it due to lack of public interest.103

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It was distributed by a production company which belonged to the Nazi
party and apparently the majority of its screenings in Germany itself were
Sunday shows for young audiences.
The S.D. reports quoted by Møller and Culbert show that these shows
were effective particularly in small groups of youth about to be called up
to the army. In addition, the film was distributed widely throughout the
German armed forces but no statistics are available on how many actually
saw it.104
The movie was also distributed in Poland and even in occupied Paris
after 1942. Uziel found sources showing that the Propaganda Corps was
responsible for circulation of the movie in the occupied zones, and at least
in Paris a French version was screened immediately after the Jews were
forced to wear yellow patches on their garments, and after the beginning of
the first deportations to the death camps.105
As to audience reaction to the film, the first report of the S.D., dated
10 January 1940 (some two months after the film was released to cinemas
in Berlin), stated that anticipation was very high due to the widespread
press coverage and publicity. Several viewers wrote to say, it continued,
that the film fully lived up to the high expectations placed in it, and that the
cinematography was more persuasive and effective than any propaganda
film could ever hope to be. The report further notes that the comparison
between the Jews and the rats emerging from their holes was particularly
impressive, as was the description of American Jewry, which viewers were
surprised to discover was so influential in the United States. The scenes in
which the Jews were shown “in disguise” were also greeted with applause.106
But the picture soon changed, as demonstrated by historian Ian Kershaw:

While the audience broke out in enthusiastic applause at the scene of
Hitler’s Reichstag speech, audiences began to dwindle as time went on.
Those who came to the film were horrified by the kosher slaughter scene;
some of them passed out and others walked out of the cinema deeply
perturbed.107

Møller and Culbert quote references to show that the only people to watch
the film in cinemas in eight major cities of Germany were political activists
and others who were obligated by their positions to attend. Those who were

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interested in the movie were people who had close contact with Jews, not
country people who had never set eyes upon a Jew. The conclusion reached
in most of the reports was that there was no need for any more movies about
the “Jewish Problem.”108 Thus for example, Welch gives the following
quotation:

The film was repeatedly described as being an exceptional “strain on the
nerves”. Comments like “We have seen Jud Süss and we’ve had enough of
this Jewish filth” were made.109

The low audience numbers were attributed by S.D. agents to the fact that
the public never showed much interest in movies without a traditional type
of story line. According to the impressions garnered from members of the
audience, the descriptions in the movie were accurate, but their presentation
was rather boring. By contrast, the reports noted the tremendous success of
Jew Suess.110
The public reception of Jew Suess, as noted, was far more enthusiastic. It
was one of the most popular movies of the Third Reich period, and the most
successful of the antisemitic films. Twenty million people saw it and its
box-office returns were 6.2 million Reichsmarks, three times its production
budget. Jew Suess came sixth in the ranking of films viewed for the years
1940-1942, and dubbed versions were produced in French, English, and
even Hungarian. These were screened prior to the planned expulsion of
Jews from the respective areas of occupation by the Reich.111 Uziel showed
that in the case of Jew Suess, too, the Propaganda Corps was in charge of
distribution throughout the Reich even though it was made by a private
production company and not the Ministry of Propaganda.112 The report of the
RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt − Reich Security Head Office), dated 28
November 1940, reviewing the reception of the movie in nine cities, stated
that the public found it to be “frighteningly authentic” and that its influence
on people was reflected in the spontaneous comment, “You feel you have
to wash your hands.” It also notes that teachers and parents tended to ask
whether this film was suitable for screening to young people, in light of
its strong psychological after-effect. According to the agents’ report, the
answer to this question almost everywhere was negative.113 It states:
Among the scenes especially singled out by the public – apart from the

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rape scene – is the entry of the Jews and all their belongings into Stuttgart.
In fact this scene has repeatedly prompted demonstrations against Jews.
In Berlin, for example, there were shouts of “Drive the Jews from the
Kurfürstendamm!” and “Throw the last of the Jews out of Germany!”114

One report after another from the S.D. headquarters in Bielefeld noted the
universal agreement that this was indeed a rare cinematic achievement and
the general recognition among all segments of the population regarding the
outstanding acting abilities of Ferdinand Marianes as the Jew Suess, and of
the brilliant performance of Walter Krauss as Rabbi Loeb, representing the
“dirty type” of Jew. One report quotes a worker who asked, as he emerged
from the cinema, “Why didn’t they show us this kind of movie earlier? Here
one can see the Jew as he really is and I would be more than happy to wring
his neck.”115
Another report from the same town stated that no other movie had
influenced such broad sections of the public and that even people who did
not frequent the cinema broke their habit in order to go and see the Jew
Suess. The agent expresses his hope that screening of the movie in Bielefeld
will continue.116 Agents from other cities agreed that it was a great shame
that films of such high quality were shown so rarely in the local cinemas.117
An S.D. report from the town of Hoexter stated that box-office sales
everywhere were far above average, and indeed were record-breaking. It is
further reported that the only criticism of the film came from women who
said the scene of the hanging was too realistic and too disturbing.118 Telling
of his childhood in Hamburg, a member of the Hitler Youth who watched
the film wrote:
I was 13 years old then. I saw the movie together with my comrades.We all
regarded the plot of the film as historical truth, and I myself as well as my
comrades were deeply impressed by the wickedness of the Jews.119

A 29-year-old member of another Nazi movement, whose memoirs were
preserved, wrote that the film formulated the way he and his friends
perceived the Jews. A resident of Budapest who attended the film’s premiere
in his city recalled that he saw a Jew having his beard ripped off by people

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who had just come out of the cinema.120 Researchers Helmut Blobner
and Herbert Helba found evidence that members of the Hitler Youth who
emerged from the cinema in Vienna after watching this movie trampled
to death a Jew whom they happened to come across.121 A former inmate
of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp whose testimony is quoted by
Giesen, said that on the day the movie was screened for the S.S. guards in
the camp, they “recognized now that the Jews were even worse than they
had thought of up to that point.” After they were told that they must receive
a warning (Denkzettel), the Jews were taken to a hangar in the camp where
they were whipped.122 From other sources we learn that, from 3 September
1940 and upon orders from Heinrich Himmler, all personnel of the S.S. and
the German police were ordered to watch the film.123
Already in November 1940, the S.S. Headquarters reported that 700,000
members of the organization had seen the movie.124 However, despite the
enthusiasm in most cities there were a few towns whose citizens remained
indifferent to it. A report from Heiligenstadt notes that the audience stayed
silent throughout the screening, even though they, too, did not like the way
the behavior of the Jews was portrayed.125 After a tour of screenings outside
of Germany, Goebbels wrote in his diary: “Most impressive…proof that
films too can work and rouse enthusiasm that is fully in harmony with our
objectives.”126

Can The Eternal Jew Be Viewed as Preparation for
the Extermination of the Jews?
In viewing The Eternal Jew, one cannot help but ask oneself whether
this movie was intended to “prepare” the German public for the notion of
the “Final Solution” − the systematic annihilation of the Jews of Europe.
It should be noted that most scholars who have examined this question
have concluded that from the existing material one cannot postulate any
connection between this movie and the decision on the “Final Solution,”
for the simple reason that at the time of the movie’s release for general
screening, Germany did not yet have a clear strategic plan for the Jews.
Nevertheless, there are some dissenting views on this matter.

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After the war Hippler was charged with crimes against humanity, on the
grounds that his film had played a significant role in persuading the German
public to accept the “Final Solution.” But he was found innocent and released
from prison because the prosecution was unable to produce any real evidence.
In the 1960s, when there was renewed interest in the film and sections of it
were used in cinematic and television productions, the question of its part
in the “Final Solution” re-emerged. Most researchers tended to believe that
the two were inseparable. As proof, the kosher slaughter scene in particular
was cited, along with Hitler’s speech which succeeded it and which contains
the explicit term “the destruction of the Jews.” The juxtaposition of these
two segments, according to some researchers, achieved by sophisticated
cinematic editing suggests, like the slaughter of cattle, the notion of the
physical elimination of the Jews.127 Møller, however, in an article published
in 1992, concludes that there is no evidence that Goebbels, who created the
movie, was aware at that stage of Hitler’s plan for the destruction of the
Jews, and one cannot be certain that Hitler himself had already conceived
it.128 Møller found that, in 1940, the term “Final Solution” was taken to refer
to the expulsion of the Jews to Poland and from there to Madagascar, and
not to their physical extermination.129 In a lecture given in London in 1997,
he elaborated:
I concluded that, for chronological reasons, the film could not have been
deliberate propaganda for the mass killing of Jews – and started off to
show that the opinions of the film historians must have been based on
hindsight.130

While Møller began by debunking the notion of a connection between the
“Final Solution” and the movie, the deeper he went into his research, the
more he found that “the thesis [that there was no link between the film and
the “Final Solution”] was beginning to come apart.” 131 Eventually, Møller
came to the opposite point of view.132 In an article published in 1997, he
presented a new thesis according to which The Eternal Jew was one long
advertisement for genocide:

More and more sources indicated that the film expressed a deliberate call
for genocide where the “produced reality” in the most reality-like medium
at the time was intended to legitimize to the public the “need” to annihilate
the Jews of Europe.133

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According to Møller, it was Goebbels who hoped, through The Eternal Jew,
to bring Hitler round to taking a decision on the annihilation of the Jews. But
Møller’s new thesis is far more complex. In his view, the “Final Solution”
was conceived as a gradual process that began with the presentation to Hitler
of the movie The Eternal Jew for his approval, as was done with every film
in which the Führer himself appeared. Screening the film before Hitler on
20 May 1940 reminded him of his earlier remarks on the annihilation of the
Jews:

It must have put him psychologically under pressure for making a move,
as the “Savior” of the German people, and thus to adhere to his own
“prophecy” of January 30, 1939, which in the film was presented as the
solution to the Jewish problem.134

Kershaw, too, in his biography of Hitler agrees with this thesis: “It seems
probable that it was the inclusion in the film The Eternal Jew... of a segment
of one of his own speeches that reminded Hitler of his earlier declarations
on this matter.”135 However, this schedule of events, as presented by Møller,
conflicts with that adhered to by most historical researchers who examined
the “Final Solution” and who believed that the decisions on it were taken
only in spring to winter of 1941. Møller, who realized that his theories
were in conflict with the prevailing view of historians, believed that his
interpretation could offer a new explanation of the phenomenon of the
“genocide mentality” rather than of the annihilation itself. He sought to
answer his critics, who accused him of over-simplification:
We as historical scientists need to reevaluate our basic thinking and
methodology... As the history of the film shows, it is necessary to use a
broader approach than the traditional, based as it is on the assumption that
only written evidence is permissible in scientific contexts.136

Similarly, Avisar determined unequivocally that The Eternal Jew (and to
some extent Jew Suess) provide evidence that in 1941, the early planning
stages of the “Final Solution” had already been set in motion.137 Welch
also suggested that The Eternal Jew might have been intended to prepare
the German nation to accept the “Final Solution.” However, he gives
no historical references to substantiate this theory.138 Gitlis for his part

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concluded that the implied message of the movie is that the killing of a few
Jews is not a crime but a necessity. However, he sees no definite historical
connection between the film and the “Final Solution.” 139
In conclusion, it would appear that advocating the idea of annihilating
the Jews in 1939 can be clearly identified, and this was explicitly stated
by Hitler in his Reichstag speech. However, according to existing research
sources, and contrary to Møller’s contention, there is no evidence of any
decision or instruction to this effect prior to spring-winter of 1941.

Conclusion
The production of the two films The Eternal Jew and Jew Suess was a
complex mission in which many branches of the regime in the Third Reich
were involved. The Ministry of Propaganda under Goebbels oversaw the
work, which involved some of the best directors in Germany at the time, its
top-ranking film stars, the Wehrmacht, and other government bodies. Many
months of work went into each of these movies, and Jews from the areas of
German occupation were forced to take part, some literally under duress,
and others due to the constraints and hardships of life at the time in Prague or
Poland. The declared aim of the films, as clearly defined by Goebbels, was to
expose “authentic Jewry” as he perceived it: a dirty, exploitative people, who
must be cut down in order to protect humanity. Thus we have the film The
Eternal Jew, which contains, perhaps, some of the most horrifying scenes
ever screened. Of particular note are those comparing the Jews to rats and
depicting “kosher slaughter.” Watching animals writhing in their own blood
as a result of “Jewish barbarism” was bound to provoke feelings of outrage.
The producers of the film had hoped that this would help whip up antisemitic
sentiment, which would be translated into support for the severe measures
the authorities were already planning to take against the Jews.
The viewer was supposed to emerge from the movie with the
understanding that “a solution must be found to the Jewish problem”; and
indeed the film was too much for the simple German viewer, who refused to
watch such purely and unabashedly repulsive scenes. Therein lies the cause
of its box office fiasco and the disappointment of the public, as reflected in

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intelligence reports.
In Jew Suess, however, while the message is as venomous as that of the
other film, the manner of presentation is entirely different. This is a long,
well-directed feature film in which the tension and the negative sexual
context cause the viewer to fully identify with the objective – neutralization
of the Jew. Only such a goal, attained by the hanging of Suess and expulsion
of the Jews from Stuttgart, could reinstate the proper order of things and
restore Germany to its former greatness. From intelligence reports we learn
that the film did indeed inflame antisemitic sentiment and passions and its
success could be measured in terms of the handsome profits that it brought.
Nevertheless, propaganda films were at no stage the chief instrument of
propaganda, nor did they compose the majority of the movies made under
the Nazi regime. At the beginning of 1943, the production of propaganda
films was drastically reduced but not halted altogether. One of the reasons
was the bombing of the film studios by the Allies, and another was Goebbels’
wish to concentrate on movies that would help raise the low morale of the
German public.140

Epilogue
Fritz Hippler, director of the movie The Eternal Jew, died in 2002. To his
last day he sought to minimize his role in the production of the movie to
which his name is accredited. “Without my collaboration the film would
have been made 100% exactly, cut after cut, word after word, as you see it
today,” Hippler wrote to Møller in 1991. He claimed that Goebbels was the
real spirit behind the project and that his own name appears in the credits
at the beginning of the film only as thanks for his work in the newsreels.
Interestingly, after a relatively short period of success, from 1940 to 1943,
Hippler seems to have lost favor with Goebbels and was dispatched to the
front as a cameraman. Though he never denied the massacre of the Jews
in the course of World War II, Hippler claimed in his book published in
1981 that the Germans had never used gas chambers, and that most of the
accused in the Nuremburg trials had been totally unaware of the systematic
annihilation of the Jews. In a later book, he maintained that Hitler’s real

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purpose had not been to destroy the Jews of Europe and that he had actually
had positive intentions. Yet toward the end of his life, he changed his tune
once again and admitted that he had heard of the gas chambers in 1944 and
that he was not the only one.141 In his last interview with the Reuters news
agency in 2000, he said: “I fully believe that the film can be considered a
milestone on the road to the Holocaust... the most miserable piece in a long
string of antisemitic mistakes.”142
However, in retrospective, Hippler said that he would not have changed
a single thing. This is of particular significance in light of the attempts being
made in recent years by right-wing elements in Germany to rehabilitate
Hippler’s image and represent him as a politician of the old school whose
motivation was love for Germany. His friends even made a movie paying
tribute to him.143
Nor did Taubert, who initiated the idea of producing the film, disappear
from the stage of history. In 1941, he began to concentrate on anti-Bolshevik
propaganda in the eastern occupied areas, for which he was promoted.144
There, where he tried to market the image of Hitler as the “savior” of these
nations from communism, he came into conflict with the S.S. and the S.D.
when he charged that their harsh treatment of the residents of these zones
interfered with the vital propaganda effort.145
After the war, he worked for the British and American secret services
helping to produce anti-communist propaganda as part of the Cold War effort,
and subsequently joined the Gehlen Organization, an intelligence-gathering
apparatus set up by the American CIA to operate in the Eastern bloc.146 In
the 1950s, he apparently worked as an adviser to NATO on psychological
warfare, and then went on to counsel secret services in various Arab countries.
In 1972, he was awarded a medal of appreciation by Helmut Kohl (later,
chancellor of Germany). In addition to his friendship with Kohl, Tauber was
also a friend of the prime minister of Bavaria, Franz Josef Strauss.
Like Hippler’s The Eternal Jew, Harlan’s Jew Suess will probably never
fade into obscurity. In 1954, Harlan declared that he had destroyed the
negative of the film in his possession (another copy was preserved under lock
and key in the West German government’s film archives), but some years
later a copy of the film, this time dubbed in Arabic, turned up in Cairo and
Beirut. It came to light that an East German company by the name of Sub-

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Export, connected with Terra, the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production company, had begun to
redistribute it after the fifty-year rights expired. Five years later, in 1959, it
was revealed that the merchant who obtained the negative intended to sell it
to Ibn Said, brother of the king of Saudi Arabia, for $100,000.147 Even today
it is easy for anyone who so wishes to obtain the film. In preparation for
writing this paper, I was interested in acquiring a copy. After briefly browsing
the Internet, I discovered that the movie was offered for sale on several
sites, some of them academic and others outright antisemitic. Wishing to
cut down on expenses, I decided to look for the movie on a popular file
sharing software program. To my great surprise, I found it with great ease
and was able to download it into my own computer within a short time. In
the next few months, whenever I wanted to utilize this software to look for
material of interest on other subjects, I was amazed to see how popular the
film is even today. There was never a moment when there was not someone
from some place in the world attempting to download the film from my
computer. When I tried to initiate conversations with these people (without
revealing my own identity) to find out their motivation, I found that with
some, the film had been recommended by friends as a classic thriller, while
others admitted that their reasons were political or racial opposition to the
Jews and Zionism. While I do not believe any far-reaching conclusions
can be drawn from this, one can say that this movie, with its images and
the effects it produces, is still alive and within the range of consciousness
of certain far-from-negligible groups. While various historians have found
that its screening to groups of non-Jewish youth in various parts of the
world does not provoke antisemitism, it is evident that the very existence
and viewing of this film by people with a proclivity toward antisemitic
sentiments could have a very powerful effect.148

Notes
1.
2.

The source of the word is Latin and it was coined by the Catholic Church in the
16th century in connection with propagating the faith.
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attitudes, trans. Konrad
Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York, 1968), 61, 121, brought by Randall L. Bytwerk,
Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic
Republic (East Lansing, Mich., 2004), 3.

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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

12.
13.
14.
15.

16.
17.
18.

19.

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Ibid.
Baruch Gitlis, Hate Films: The Nazi Cinema in the War against the Jews (in
Hebrew) (Gali Alfa, 1996), 41; David Bankier, The Germans and the Final
Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism (Oxford, 1992).
Ibid.
David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema 1933-1945 (New York, 1985),
302.
Gitlis, Hate Films, 38.
See: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York, 1941), vol. 1, ch. 6, “War
Propaganda,” 227-42; http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=
715 &paper=2499.
National Vanguard Books, http://www.natvanbooks.com/cgibin/webc.cgi/ st_
prod.html?p_prodi =500&p_ catid=15 (emphasis added).
S. Hornshøj-Møller and D. Cuthert, “Der Ewige Jude (1940): Joseph Goebbels’
Unequaled Monument to Anti-Semitism,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television 1 (1992): 1.
Quoted in Stig Hornshøj-Møller, “Using Authentic Nazi Propaganda in Teaching
the Holocaust: Problems, possibilities, dangers and experiences,” Paper presented
at the 27th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches,
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, 2-4 March 1997.
Ibid.
Felix Moeller, The Film Minister: Goebbels and the Cinema in the “Third Reich,”
trans. Michael Robinson (Stuttgart, 2000), 97.
Gitlis, Hate Films, 137.
Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, “The Structure of Nazi Foreign Policy 1933-1945,” in The
Third Reich, edited by Christian Leitz (Oxford, 1999), 74-79; Max Weinreich,
Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes against the
Jewish People (New York, 1946), 112-15, 133.
Roel Vande Winkel, “Nazi Germany’s Fritz Hippler, 1909–2002,” Historical
Journal of Film, Radio and Television 2 (2003): 91-92.
Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels, translated from the German by Krishna Winston
(New York, 1993), 261.
Stig Hornshøj-Møller, “The Role of ‘Produced Reality’ in the Decision-Making
Process Which Led to the Holocaust,” paper presented at the conference, “Genocide
and the Modern World,” Association of Genocide Scholars, Concordia University,
Montreal, Canada, 11-13 June 1997, http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewigejude/montreal-19970611-written.shtml
This regards propaganda units first formed during the German invasion of
Sudetenland which were subordinate professionally to the Ministry of Propaganda
and under the command of the Wehrmacht. These units were designed to gather
news material from the areas of military operations, distribute propaganda among
the enemy army and civilian population, and organize educational and recreational